The present technology relates to an operational terminal device, a display control device operated by the operational terminal device, a method of operating a terminal device, a method of operating a display control device, and a system.
Remote controls are essential for a large number of electronic units including televisions and recording/playback devices such as BD (Blu-ray Disc (registered trademark)) recorders. Remote controls including only operation buttons have been dominant; however, in recent years, remote controls including a display panel and a touch panel have been developed. For example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-153732 discloses a remote control device displaying, on a display panel, operation buttons similar to those in a typical remote control on a display panel in a normal mode and displaying, on the display panel, the same menu screen as that displayed on a television screen by pushing a menu button, thereby performing operations with a touch panel.
In some cases, a remote control is operated according to an instruction displayed on a display device. For example, with the spread of digital broadcasting in recent years, televisions are provided with remote controls including blue, red, green and yellow buttons (hereinafter referred to as color buttons), and these color buttons are operated while watching information displayed on the television, thereby allowing various operations to be performed depending on the situation. More specifically, for example, the case where data broadcasting is displayed on a television to operate color buttons according to an instruction on a display screen and the case where a recording/playback device is programmed with use of color buttons according to an instruction on a display screen of a television correspond to the above case.
However, in such a situation, it is necessary for a user to operate a remote control in his hand while watching a display screen of a television to check an instruction, and the user frequently suffers inconvenience. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-153732 does not disclose a method of eliminating this inconvenience in the case where operation buttons are displayed on the remote control.
It is desirable to provide an operational terminal device capable of reducing the frequency with which a user watches a display screen of a display device when operating operation buttons on a remote control, a display control device, a method of operating a terminal device, a method of operating a display control device, and a system.